Джеффри Дивер - Captivated

The fourth shop was more promising for two reasons. First, it looked like a real art gallery, offering for sale well-done paintings, sketches, photography, and sculpture. Second, among those paintings were three by Evelyn Fontaine.

The slim man sitting behind the counter — in jeans, black suspenders, and a pale blue shirt — looked up with a Please buy something smile. “Howdy.”

“Hi.”

The man’s bushy white hair was squashed by a Greek fisherman’s cap and he sported a trim beard.

Shaw gestured to the Fontaine paintings: busy sprawls of paint, in dark reds and purples and blacks. All about four feet square. “I came down from Indianapolis. I heard Evelyn was in Muncie. I was hoping for a show, but there wasn’t anything online. Thought I’d just take a chance and drive down.”

Taciturn by nature, Shaw was talkative on a job; this put the suspicious at ease and made the quiet more inclined to share.

“Evelyn Fontaine’s in town? Really?” The man swiveled and eyed the canvases lovingly. “Quite the talent, isn’t she?”

“Definitely.” Shaw squinted at the center painting. “Oh, it’s a portrait.” His surprise was real; he hadn’t seen the woman’s face at first.

“Takes a minute to spot her, doesn’t it?”

Shaw was impressed.

A stack of information fliers about Fontaine sat on the desk. Shaw picked one up.

Evelyn Maude Fontaine is the founder of the “Layering Movement” in painting. She begins with a realistic sketch of her subject on a blank canvas and then paints over it, following the lines she has drawn, but with variations. Then she applies additional layers, each inspired by, but different from, the one beneath it. Often, Evelyn will paint dozens of layers until she “realizes my vision of my subject.” Her canvases can have as many as forty or fifty coats of paint and weigh many pounds.

Shaw asked if he could keep the flier and, when the man nodded, he folded the glossy sheet of paper and put it in his rear pocket. “It’s an artists-in-residence retreat Evelyn’s at. You know where it might be?”

“Sure don’t. Never heard of any here. They call ’em retreats for a reason, I guess.”

Echoing David Goodwin’s words, though the gallery owner’s voice had a sardonic twinge to it, Shaw believed.

He decided not to ask for a phone number or to leave his for the man to forward. Doing so could spook her.

He did ask, though, “You know Jason Barnes?”

“Who?”

“Evelyn’s friend. Owns a gallery in Chicago. Shows Abstract Expressionist works.”

This amused the man.

As if that’s ever going to come back...

“Nope. Sorry.”

Shaw hit the remaining galleries in town, not expecting to have much luck. But that proved not to be the case.

At the last gallery on Jefferson, the fifty-something, frizzy-haired woman behind the counter said she’d heard that Fontaine was at an informal retreat about ten miles outside of town, someplace on Route 83. The attendees were calling themselves the Creative Commons. And, yes, another artist named Jason — last name unknown — was with her.

Shaw returned to the Toyota and from his computer bag in the trunk retrieved a McNally folding map of the area. He paused on the blistering sidewalk and looked over the deserted streets. He noted a corner bar that seemed to be open; the neighborhood was so deserted, it was hard to tell.

Colter Shaw had grown up without internet, TV, or even a movie house closer than twenty hard miles from the family cabin. Radio for listening was all right, though discouraged. Transmitting was forbidden, except in emergencies, as his father said that skilled radio trackers, known as fox hunters, might be trying to track you down — a warning that unsettled the children not because of any threat but because it was another sign of their father’s progressing mental decay. But on trips off the Compound to visit family in Seattle and Austin, Shaw discovered movies. His uncle introduced him to the gritty film noir crime genre, which became his favorite.

This bar — fatigued, dingy, accessed through a mightily squeaking door — was a perfect set for any classic noir. Smoky without smoke, dim, abraded, the space was inhabited by a half-dozen well-worn men and two women of retirement age and about the same number of men in their mid-twenties or early thirties, on lunch break from their construction jobs, having a beer or a shot, or both. Like the street people Shaw had driven past, everyone here was white.

Perching on an unsteady stool, Shaw ordered an IPA brewed in Muncie and bean-free chili. Unfurling the map, he studied Route 83, a winding road about fifteen miles long, ending in a small town to the west. He noted some spreads that might make for good retreats.

But he wasn’t going on the final leg of the search just yet.

As he sipped good beer and ate excellent chili Shaw decided it best not to simply tell Matthews where his wife was, collect his reward, and move on. A wife who disappears without warning, a husband distraught at her absence — and who owns a Glock? Colter Shaw recognized the potential for disaster, even if unlikely — say, five percent? He would have Matthews drive down to Muncie without saying exactly where Fontaine was. After Shaw frisked him — never assume someone is unarmed — they’d proceed to the retreat. Shaw would stay near while Matthews pitched his case to Fontaine and have his phone handy to dial 911, if necessary. Or, if things turned dire, he could intervene himself.

Shaw paid for the meal and walked into the embracing damp heat, making his way to the parking lot. When near the Toyota he stopped abruptly.

A flat tire.

Odd, with rentals. Wheels were the first things that companies inspected before they let a car off the lot.

Then Shaw had another thought: How was it that the owner of the last gallery knew about the Creative Commons and that Evelyn Fontaine was there, while the Greek fisherman — who was selling her work — didn’t even know the retreat existed or that she was in town?

This coincided with the sound of feet moving up fast behind him.

Before Shaw could turn they were on him, two huge men. Their hands closed on his arms, and he was dragged into a nearby alley.

“Did you tell him?” Evelyn Fontaine’s voice was a ragged whisper. “Did you tell Ron where I am?”

Shaw, Fontaine and young Jason Barnes were not in one of the derelict buildings downtown — which, Shaw reflected, would have been a perfect film noir setting where a snitch is tortured to death. Instead, the venue was the comfy Java Joe’s.

“No, I didn’t,” Shaw told the artist.

Fontaine’s intense lavender eyes held his blue. “I hope so. I really do. Or I’m dead.”

As the photo in Matthews’s wallet had revealed, she wasn’t a beautiful woman, despite her husband’s insistence; her face was long, the angles of jaw and cheeks severe. But that face reminded him of a Roman empress’s, her hair was an exotic, calculated tangle, her figure both willowy and voluptuous, and the charisma hinted at in the photo was more than present in person. She had an intense air about her. And those round violet eyes...

Evelyn Fontaine was indeed captivating.

She was wearing close-fitting tan-colored jeans and a gossamer cornflower-blue blouse. A half pound of thin wire bracelets encircled her wrists. Her earrings were silver nautilus shells. She wore dusky eye shadow as her only makeup.

How Shaw happened to be here at the moment: Tony, the black-suspendered director of the gallery displaying her canvases, had called Fontaine just after Shaw left. It turned out that, concerned Matthews might come looking for her, she had alerted Tony and other acquaintances in town to look out for strangers asking about her.